“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (2Timothy 4:1-5 KJV)
In over forty years of ministry you can see a lot. On Sunday, August 10, I celebrated forty-one years of Gospel ministry. The kid preacher who started on the streets of Cincinnati, Ohio, playing guitar to gather a crowd and preaching to anyone who would stay long enough to listen, has gone through many valleys and across many mountain tops in his time. My endeavor over the last four decades has been to fulfill the last phrase of the above text, “make full proof of thy ministry.” What a joy it has been to see souls saved, young people surrender their lives to the Lord for ministry, help missionaries get to the field and help them on the field, and pastoring a people who love God.
The future presents new challenges as we go on to serve our God. How exciting it is to anticipate the Lord’s work reaching out to even more souls through new avenues of evangelism, but still by His chosen vehicle, the Local Church. Time to quit? We will have none of that! This is like our ministry is starting all over again. We didn’t quit when others turned away. We didn’t quit when Satan hindered. We didn’t quit when we stumbled along the way (just get up and go some more). We didn’t quit when family and friends forsook us. God has never left us and we have no reason to doubt Him now. Praise God, I think I’ll go a little further.
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